How Congress Voted House Blocks Lower-cost Loans For Farmers

October 06, 1985|CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY

Votes of area members of Congresson key issues during the week ending Oct. 4, 1985.

KEY HOUSE VOTES

House blocks attempt to set up lower cost loan program for farmers. The House Oct. 1 narrowly defeated an attempt to establish a loan program that would have allowed the nation's hard-pressed farmers to repay price support loans on crops for less than the original loan. The measure, which also proposed targeting federal assistance to farmers in the worst financial straits, failed 200-228.

The 1985 farm bill, to which the amendment was offered, calls for maintaining the present system of "deficiency" payments to farmers to make up any shortfall between actual market sale prices and certain "target" prices. The bill also freezes the current target price of $4.38 a bushel for wheat through 1987.

The amendment would have set target prices for wheat at $4.50 a bushel for the first 15,000 bushels and $4 a bushel for additional bushels.

Supporters of the amendment argued that it is the small and medium sized farm operations that are in trouble, but a large percentage of federal aid is gobbled up by the big operations that are not suffering financially. Under the amendment's loan program, they said, farmers who did not cut back their production to decrease supply - and thereby boost prices - would not receive the same protection afforded other farmers.

"No longer can we afford to artificially prop up the returns received by farmers unwilling to contribute their fair share to resolving today's enormous supply and demand imbalance," declared Arlan Stangeland, R-Minn.

"It is now too risky to gamble," argued Agriculture Committee Chairman E. 'Kika' de la Garza, D-Texas, who led opponents of the amendment. Any tampering with the principles of the existing federal farm supports system, they warned, could cause the entire structure to collapse, leaving the American agriculture industry in a desperate situation with no where to turn for help. The amendment suffered from a 'big is bad' mentality, they argued, and Congress must pass a bill to aid all of American agriculture.

Voting for the amendment to revise crop loans and target prices:

PA - Yatron (D), Kostmayer (D), McDade (R), Ritter (R).

Voting against:

NJ - Roukema (R), PA - Kanjorski (D), Coughlin (R).

House strips referendum plan from farm bill. The House killed a controversial provision in the farm bill Oct. 3 that allowed wheat and feed grain farmers to vote on a new federal plan to give them sharply increased price supports in return for significant cuts inproduction. The vote of 251-174 was an important victory for the Reagan administration in its effort to cut domestic spending.

The provision required the secretary of agriculture to conduct a referendum of wheat and feed grain farmers every two years. Approval from 60 percent of eligible farmers would trigger the new program. Participating farmers would have had to cut back sharply on the number of acres they planted, while the government would raise its price-support levels by as much as a third.

Supporters of the move to strike the referendum from the farm bill argued that implementation of the proposal would require acreage cutbacks of as much as 50 percent to keep prices above the higher federal price-support levels and prevent the government from having to buy up surplus harvests.

Opponents said that the plan would not require any more reductions in acres planted than under the farm bill's basic commodity program and that the measure would save $1.7 billion over three years. The program, they said, is the only way to boost prices for farmers who are suffering through the worst market environment in the farm economy since the Depression.

House maintains production controls on peanuts. The House defeated an amendment that would have gradually phased out production controls for peanuts by a vote of 195-228 Oct. 3. Production controls restrict the number of acres that peanut farmers can plant, which restricts supply. Supporters argued that the controls add $300 million a year to food costs in the United States. Opponents said that the controls are necessary to provide stable incomes for the nation's peanut producers.

Attempt to kill trade limits on textiles, shoes fails in senate. Anger over the nation's trade imbalance spilled onto the Senate floor Oct. 2, when the Senate refused to kill an amendment designed to aid the U.S. textile, apparel and shoe industries by restricting imports. The vote to table the amendment failed 42-53.